


no walls around us

by straightforwardly



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Minor Internalized Homophobia, Sibling Incest, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 03:04:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8270237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/pseuds/straightforwardly
Summary: Mary wants to talk. Lydia would really rather just get back to the kissing part already.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [within_a_dream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/gifts).



That evening it took Lydia rather longer to get away than she’d planned. Kitty prattled on for an _age_ about how well a uniform suited Mr. M—, and how _charmingly_ he’d flirted with them, and while Lydia could not _quite_ disagree, she had no patience to dwell on the memories of flattery so long as the promise of more immediate pleasures awaited her. But finally Kitty allowed her mouth to shut and sleep to claim her, and Lydia was left free to slip out of their bed and step out into the hall.

She took no candle; it would only draw attention if anyone happened to be awake and looking, and she had long learned her path by heart. Winter was upon England, and Lydia shivered with cold as she crept down the hall, past Lizzie and Jane’s room, and to the little corner room Mary had claimed for herself shortly after her coming out.

Lydia stepped inside, and closed the door behind her. 

Mary, though curled up in bed, could not in any way be mistaken as sleeping. She’d tucked her bed sheets around her shoulders in deference to the cold, but she was reading intently from a book by the light of the candle burning at her bedside table.

“Oh, I am half-frozen!” Lydia exclaimed lowly. “And here, how cozy you are! How cruel you are, to force me to make this trek, and in such cold. Quick, you must warm me up!”

Mary did not look up from her book as she replied, “It is no fault of mine if you do not think to don a shawl. I should wonder at your being so accounted as a ‘charming girl’ when you speak such nonsense, if I did not know that men are fools easily led by a pretty face.”

“How droll you always are!” Lydia exclaimed, pushing away the bed covers so that she might join Mary under them. “Tell me this,” she added, teasing, “If men are fools for loving me, then what have you to say for yourself?”

_That_ had Mary lifting her gaze from her book, and it looked as though she would actually give a considered answer, but Lydia had no patience to hear it. Snatching the book out of Mary’s distracted hands, she tossed it away as she leaned down to kiss her.

Mary pulled back. “That was _The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy_!”

“And much duller than me,” Lydia replied, and kissed her again.

Mary sulked some moments longer, but Lydia knew what she was about, and soon she was melting into the kiss, returning Lydia’s warm caresses with equal fervor. Lydia hummed happily into the kiss, shifting so that she was more fully on top of Mary. She was warm, so very warm, and Lydia wanted nothing more than to pull off both their nightgowns and press together, skin to skin, so close that the cold outside would feel like a dream. 

Suddenly Mary broke the kiss. “Wait,” she said. “This was not— I had wished to talk to you.”

Lydia made an exasperated sound. “What is it _now_?”

Mary took a deep breath. Her dark eyes almost looked black by the flickering candlelight; her lips were red and swollen from kissing. 

Lydia wasn’t much given for introspection, but she thought that Mary might be right about men being fools, if they couldn’t see just how very desirable her sister was. 

Then she realized that Mary was still speaking.

“Does it not concern you? We are _sisters_ — we have the same mother and father, the same blood. Does the Bible not say, ‘ _Cursed is he who lies with his sister_ ’? And does it not also say, ‘ _The nakedness of your sister, their nakedness you shall not uncover_ ’? And that is not even to begin with the matter of our shared sex—”

Lydia groaned. “Oh, must you be such a bore? Who _cares_ what that dull old book says. It’s just a bit of fun— though I understand, dear sister, that you may be unfamiliar with the word.”

Mary did not rise to her bait. “Do you not ever wonder what draws us to—desire one another like this?”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Of course not. Who _wouldn’t_ want me? I’m soft and pretty and have a _marvelous_ complexion. Now,” she added, with just the tiniest touch of pleading, “Could we return to the kissing? The kissing was lovely.”

Mary frowned, staring at her in such a way that Lydia could not help but feel as though she had missed something— and she _hated_ feeling as though she had missed something. She had enough of that when speaking to their father, and Lizzie was nearly as bad.

“ _What_?” 

“This truly does not trouble you? This— unnatural desire?”

Lydia let out a startled laugh. “ _Unnatural_? What queer ideas you have!”

“You do not find it unnatural?”

“Why should I?”

“Because— even if we set aside our shared blood, there is still our shared _sex_. Other women, they desire men, dream of marriage to men.”

Lydia laughed again, this time in true delight. Really, it was quite _astonishing_ at times how much Mary did not know, for all that she read so much, and been out longer than her! “Really, don’t be ridiculous! No one _desires_ men— how could they? Such _awkward_ -looking creatures. Even _they_ know it, which is why they are always panting at our heels, and not those of other men. And,” she continued, warming to her subject, for she always found it to be a pleasure when she could explain to Mary _how the world was_ , “women certainly don’t marry men for _desire_. No, women marry men because men have the money, and can buy them pretty things, and because married women can go wherever they want without worrying about a chaperone, and can sit at the head of tables.”

Mary was silent for a moment. “An...interesting theory,” she finally said, with the sort of tone that told Lydia that she was going _keep on talking_ , and _they_ , Lydia thought with more than a little impatience, had done quite enough of _that_ this evening. 

So she bent her head, and began to lave sweet, open-mouthed kisses against her throat. 

“ _Lydia_ ,” Mary began, her voice reproachful, though the sudden flutter of her pulse said otherwise. “You cannot always—”

Lydia smiled, and scraped her teeth deliberately against the hollow of her throat. Mary let out a breathy kind of gasp, and seemed to forget all thoughts of arguing as she tugged Lydia back up so she could capture her mouth with hers, her hands running down Lydia’s back and pulling her closer. 

“You _beast_ ,” Mary murmured against her lips with the sort of heat that would absolute _shock_ their sisters if they’d ever heard it, and Lydia laughed, and set about showing her just what a _beast_ she could be. 

After that, there was no more thought of conversation.

**Author's Note:**

> The Bible quotes Mary refers to are from Deuteronomy 27:22 and Leviticus 18:9.


End file.
